In Today's Mail and 30 Day Challenge, Days 18, 19, and 20

I'm a team set collector these days.  For years I was content to piece together the annual Red Sox teams from Topps.  But I've recently decided to go back to 1981, when other brands started showing up, and collecting the Red Sox teams from the flagship products.  There were some really cheap team sets on eBay so I started there.  Today in the mail I received the 1990 and 1991 Leaf team sets.  Here's a representative sample of each.  I must say neither design is very exciting, but some of the photos are good.

 

And now back to the challenge.

A card of a player who became manager of your favorite team

I'll go with the obvious one since I remember him as both a player and coach.  He's the best Red Sox manager in my memory.  He got on my good side from his introduction news conference when he made it clear he was there to win the World Series.


A favorite card from a country other than the United States

I don't have much by way of baseball cards from outside the United States; a few from Canada is about it.  But in my basketball cards I have tons!  Basketball in the 1990's was experiencing tremendous growth around the world, and card companies began distributing overseas.  These 1994-95 Upper Deck Collector's Choice A.C. Green cards come in versions from five different countries other than the U.S.  They're all the same on the front.  But from the back, can you figure out which countries by the words?

Your favorite parallel card based on the parallel, not the player

This one is as easy as they get.  REFRACTORS!  There is no second place.  I especially liked Finest Refractors followed by Topps Chrome Refractors.  Topps really lead the way with these, and the other brands tried to imitate but never got it as right as Topps.  I love how you can see the light prism race across the surface of the card by slightly tilting it back and forth under the right light.